Mainframe users are increasingly polarised, with larger
organisations showing no signs of giving up their big iron but
smaller firms looking at Unix and Microsoft, according to a survey
of IBM mainframe users.
The survey found that many large mainframe users were investing
in mainframe integration, development and extension. They were, for
example, installing "speciality engines" - chips with embedded
Linux or Java code - to help cut costs by processing specific
applications, such as customer relationship management or business
intelligence, instead of leaving the mainframe to do all the
work.
The biggest group, mid-sized mainframe users, were paying the
highest price for their mainframe calculations (measured in
mips).
Smaller users said they were eyeing other computing platforms,
mainly Unix and Windows, with better price/performance.
Almost 75% of firms were using Linux, which IBM has been
promoting on the mainframe as a cost-effective consolidation
strategy.
Many organisations were using the latest mainframe hardware.
More than 60% of sites had an IBM z990 or newer system installed,
and 14% had the latest z9. There was also growing interest in
Intel-based systems used to emulate mainframe software.
Mark Lillycrop, research analyst at Arcati, which conducted the
survey, said, "There is a popular, if misguided perception of
mainframes as outdated legacy systems, sitting in a back-office and
slowly decaying. A substantial majority of our respondents are on
the latest hardware.
"The IBM mainframe remains a platform of contrasts. On the one
hand, it offers excellent performance and availability. On the
other hand, it wrestles constantly with an image of excessive cost
and complexity, of isolation and exclusivity, while distributed
platforms appear to share applications and resources with relative
ease. In the average enterprise datacentre, these two sides of the
mainframe's image jostle for position."
Of the 92 mainframe users covered by the survey, more than 50%
were from the banking, insurance and accounting sectors. IT
companies accounted for 15% of users, with the public sector and
manufacturing representing 11% and 8% respectively.
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